The Call
by FireOpal
Summary: “All my life I have listened, heard the sweet siren song, been lulled to sleep by the whispering and woken by the singing. Now I heed the call.” Harry’s POV. Contains character death and mortality issues. Very serious. Post OotP.


**F/C**- I was lying in the bath the other day, and thought of this. To be truly precise, the one I thought of was better than this, but as I couldn't access pen/paper/computer for about an hour afterwards, I have forgotten most of it, and have had to reconstruct it as best as I can. It concerns a very real topic, death and mortality.

Warnings for character death.

One Shot, Harry's POV.

Angst.

Hope you like it.

PS- Btw, I know you're all expecting another chapter of 'Shadow's Call' or even the start of 'Bracelet', but, to be honest, I'm unsure of two different fic ideas I want to write, so it will be delayed as I attempt to make up my mind. Bear with me.

**The Call.**

All my life I have listened, heard the sweet siren song, been lulled to sleep by the whispering and woken by the singing. Now I heed the call.

I should've realised that the death-curse that branded me with the lightning mark meant more than just a connection. Young, I assumed it to be a memento of the demise of my parents – a reminder of my unbearable loneliness. Older, as I began to understand, I saw it as a link to Him. A bane, a disfigurement, a Dark scar, showing itself for all to see. But now I understand it is part of the call, a physical implication, a reminder of the delay my mother brought with her life, and a path back to them.

When I joined Hogwarts, my first year was a blur of happiness and excitement – friends, fun, magic, a world where I belonged. I faced Him for the second time, and knew I truly looked upon the face of Evil. I resisted the Dark, I fought the battle, prevented Him from rising. I was young, naïve, and I could not understand, nor sense the call.

Second year again I returned. Murderer, Dark, Evil they named me, they turned from me and yet I fought the Dark. I saved a girl, a beautiful young girl from a terrible fate, proved the others wrong, and saved the day. I toed the line so close that I could finally hear the call, poisoned by Basilisk fang, but I had no knowledge, and a firebird came to save me, the rescuer. I survived again against Him.

In my third year, I noticed the call and began to wonder; yet I could not understand. I felt the call in its most evil form, fought it, but was also pitted against another evil, the monstrous beast inside a dear friend. I saved Sirius, Remus, Peter, my friends, and gained a Debt from one I truly hated yet could not kill, and found the truth. But masked in this was the call, and that year I resented it in its shadowy form, screaming and playing with my mind.

Fourth year the call grew in strength, and desperation. Fighting dragon, sea creature, spell and enchantment, and Him. Trusting an impostor and betrayed by one close to me, I still heard the call. I faced it, dragged before Him in ridicule and fear, but before I could understand I fled, obeying the ghost-forms of my parents, returning to safety. I was not yet ready.

Fifth year, the call brought pain, truth, despair and betrayal, this time by the world I had grown to love. It too brought the beginnings of realisation. Shown images of pain and death, the call stayed near as I tried to block Him from my mind. I heard the call clearly, whispering to me on a wind, the wind that took Sirius from me. But, in my grief, I shut it out and did not understand.

The following year, sixth year of school, the call masked by hurt and grief, was no easier. I denied my little understanding and hid, closing my ears to the familiar sound. But, through my healing and the abduction and rescue of Ginny and Neville from Him, the call returned, thrusting me flinching into the light.

Now, as the light of two simultaneous jade green spell-flashes tear through the darkening night, stopping the fierce battle that I know to be taking place around us in the grounds of the school, I hear the call above all, singing its serenade, its siren song, and I smile.

Tonight I understand.

Tonight I heed the call.

Tonight I, Harry James Potter, die.

Tonight Lord Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Dark Lord, dies.

And I am not afraid. I follow the call as I have all my life.

The call of death.


End file.
